


Pardon me, I’m a mess

by crookedspoon



Series: I dance like I've got diamonds [1]
Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pornstars, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 12:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17203202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Harley is a promising young student paying her way through med school by working as a stripper. One day, she meets her idol, the Joker, who turns her life upside down.Part 1 (Prelude, or postlude really): Harley has worked long and hard to get where she is, and her efforts are finally paying off. Everything is looking up for her right now. That is, until a message arrives that seems to threatens her idyllic new life.





	Pardon me, I’m a mess

**Author's Note:**

> It's taken me three years to find the time and the courage to write this, the "prologue" to my stripper/rockstar AU you may or may not know already. If you do, you may have forgotten about it already, or thought I might have abandoned it. Frankly, I thought I wouldn't get around to writing anything for it this year either, but then I found half a draft that I started in 2016 but hadn't touched since the beginning of 2017, and thought I'd give it a whirl.
> 
> The actual stripper/rockstar story will start in the next chapter, unless I change my mind again and decide to keep this part of the timeline to itself, after all. As usual, I promise no more than one update per year, anything more than that will have to rely on the alignment of the universe. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

There are few things that manage to lure Harley out of the luxuriance of crisp white bedsheets faster than the aroma of freshly ground coffee. It's like a spell wafting through the air, hooking her like a gullible (or very hungry) fish and reeling her towards the kitchen.

Breakfast is something you ought to indulge in, and anyway, she's been lazing around in bed long enough, rolling onto the recently straightened side of the bed, laying her head onto the fluffed up pillow and inhaling the scent of shampoo that never fails to drain the stress right out of her.

She's still reeling from getting to relax at all. Her, getting to relax – fancy that! She can't remember the last time she took some days off. Okay, there was that one week she spent in bed with the flu, but that hardly counts. It's difficult to enjoy yourself when you're ill and going through a million tissues, cough drops, and vitamins each day. There are only so many crime dramas or romance novels you can get through before you succumb to the misery of your battered health bar.

Now, she intends to relish every last second of her vacation. It's a thought she has to savor slowly, like Belgian chocolate for the mind: no prepping, no packing, no rushing from hotels to sets to airports to venues and back, no waiting around for her cues or her passes or the lines to advance. It's so freeing she barely knows what to do with all that time on her hands.

She has to fill it with _something_ since she can't totally shut off the workaholic inside of her.

While she was doing the lazing (note the active voice here, because even leisure has to be a choice), she also snapped a couple of photos to capture the sense of calm and contentment she felt, complete with crazy bed hair, and posted the cutest on Instagram. She feels a rush of gratitude whenever her fans appreciate her candid pictures as well as her sexy ones.

She's also mentally prepared an itinerary that so far only comprises soaking in the hot tub for hours and curling up on the couch with a good book, but she can improvise along the way. Put her feelers out for all the enticing new things she's been missing out on lately. Through social media osmosis, she has an idea but not much more than that. Finding out what's worth perusing is going to be another item on the list. A bit vague as far as tasks go, but it'll have to do for now.

A whiff of sizzling mushrooms is distracting her. 

Early morning sunshine filters through the kitchen window, glinting off the polished surfaces. And there are a lot. Harley never managed to produce that shine herself when she was living alone, but that's probably because she didn't care enough. There were times when every available surface would be piling high with takeout boxes and soda cans. Not so good times.

Thankfully, she doesn't live alone anymore.

Not only would there be chaos, there also wouldn't be anyone to make her breakfast unless she paid someone to do it. That is kind of the best part about it, aside from the sex, and the having someone to watch movies with or to come home to, or even just the distribution of chores – so okay, there are a lot of best parts under the heading 'living together with someone', but you get the gist.

Harley stretches. Her skin is a little tense in places where hot hands touched her yesterday. She feels enough of a chill to consider putting on some clothes, but fabric, no matter how soft, feels restricting and Harley rather enjoys the sun on her skin. Not that it matters right now. The laid table beckons. She'll just have some coffee to warm up.

"Smells good," she purrs as she steals closer to peer over his shoulder, where the clean scent of soap and aftershave makes her linger.

"I swear," Rick says and presses a kiss to her temple before turning off the stove, "sometimes I think your sense for when breakfast is ready is just uncanny."

"What can I say?" she asks with a grin. "I love food. Especially when it comes already prepared and ready to eat."

When it comes to food, her timing is impeccable. It's like her nose controls her motor functions and kicks her into gear at the faintest promise of something delicious. 

Fresh slices of toast pop out of the toaster. What did she say? Impeccable. 

"Yum," she says and snatches one. It nearly falls off the plate she drops it on, because _hot._

Rick offers to pour some mushroom omelet next to her toast and she accepts.

"When did you get home last night?" she asks as she sucks her thumb into her mouth. "I didn't hear you."

He must have come home at _some_ point, because she'd destroyed the crisp hospital corners on his side only to find them intact again when she woke. She's fairly certain she doesn't make beds in her sleep.

"Late." He slides another portion of the omelet onto his own plate and sets that down on the table. "I wasn't exactly quiet either, but you were out like a light. I doubt Leatherface could have woken you if he'd been in the room, wielding his chainsaw."

"No, no, no," Harley protests, gesturing wildly. "He _so_ would have. I've played too much Resident Evil to ever _not_ be freaked into running away when I hear a chainsaw." 

She'd say they ought to change the subject or she'll lose her appetite, but the chances of that actually happening are rather slim, so she just reaches out for the jug of orange juice and pours herself a glass.

"I thought you'd be inured by now," Rick says, "given how often you've replayed the same campaigns."

"You'd think so, but there are some things you never get used to." She takes a bite from her omelet-laden toast, index finger pointing in his direction. "Just like you never warmed up to Waller."

"Yeah, but that has different reasons." 

"Don't you feel the urge to flee when you hear her voice?" 

When the first crumbs fall onto her bare thighs, she brushes them off and drapes a clean dish towel over them. While she's comfortable walking around in just her skin, certain occasions call for a bit more covering up. Eating crumbly food is one of those. Cooking is another. Which is probably why Rick is wearing his tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. Getting hot oil on your sensitive bits hurts like a bitch.

Rick grimaces, but not because of the pain she's imagining.

"Can we not talk about her so early in the morning?" Placing his cup of coffee at a precise forty-five degree angle above his plate, Rick finally sits down.

"Sure thing. Tell me about your day then. Did you break in the new secretary?" 

Rick huffs a laugh. "Yeah. Successfully so."

"I want details. Obviously you had to bend her over the desk—look over her shoulder, I mean."

"Yeah, though not in that order."

"Don't be so tight-lipped," Harley whines, waving her cutlery at him. "Walk me through it. What else did you do?"

"I backed her into a file cabinet."

"Did you fuck her against it?" 

She sucks the mushroom from her fork, liquefying it in her mouth and imagining him slowly rolling up her pencil skirt to cup her ass, take off her panties, unbutton her blouse.

God, how she wishes she'd been there. Though it's probably better she hadn't been. She probably would have been hard pressed to refrain herself from jumping the girl herself.

"I ate her out against it," he says matter-of-factly in between bites. Harley motions for him to elaborate. This is getting frustrating. It's like pulling teeth. Every damn time. "Then I took her on the desk and she rode me in my fake leather office chair. You know the drill."

"Mmh, maybe so. I know _your_ drill in any case. Intimately so."

Rick smiles politely, immune to her terrible puns. "Why do I like you again? It's certainly not because of your propensity for word play."

"Because I'm an exceptional lay, why else?" Harley shoots back, batting her eyelashes and looking as innocent as ever. "Never mind that. Let me just get on the record that it still sounds positively _enchanting._ I can't wait to see the final product." 

He rolls his eyes and changes the subject before she breaks out even more puns on performer names. She hasn't even gotten started yet. "How was your scene with Lawton and Diablo, by the way?"

"Scorching," she says, unable to suppress the mirth blooming on her face. She can't help herself where puns are concerned. It's almost pathological by this point.

"Any delectable details you'd like to share?" Another serving of toast is ready. Rick gets up to retrieve it.

"Nothing you won't see once it's cut together," Harley teases.

"What happened to not being so tight-lipped?"

"I really wanna tell you all about it down to the smallest detail, but I'd rather not spoil it. Seriously, you want to watch this for yourself." A little shiver runs down her spine, a pale reminder of the shudder that had wrecked her when Santana lit the candle she was holding. It wasn't meant for her, yet the proximity to the flame in his hand, the heat of his body carried a hint of an excitement she hadn't felt in a while. The phantom of his touch still lingers on her skin like a cloak or cling film. That's normal to some extent.

"Guess I'll have to wait then. At least plenty of new material will be dropping to tide me over."

"Anything specific you're looking forward to?" she asks, spreading hummus on her toast and sprinkling chives on top.

"You and June, for example."

"The witch one? Oh yeah, that was fun."

It was, in fact, amazing. June had transformed into a completely different person just by donning a green pointy hat, black leggings, and a blouse with batwing sleeves and a neckline right down to her navel. If Harley hadn't witnessed the change herself, she would never have believed the woman on set and the mousy girl from the dressing room were one and the same person.

It's the kind of thrill and newness she hopes to be able to evoke in her own fans. She's been at this for some time, pushing boundary after boundary, and she's not getting any younger, something that's crucial in her line of work. Not getting younger per se, but youth itself. As if corrupted innocence was all anyone ever wanted to see.

Part of her has a mind to change that. To bring different people in front of the camera, not just those who are blond and young and pretty like her, but those who fall outside of the realm of the conventionally beautiful. Because those people are _gorgeous_ too, they just haven't been given a time to shine.

And Harley resents that, resents how limiting the stereotype of the horny blond teen is, the step-daughter, the girlfriend, the new recruit. There are so many more stories out there, waiting to be heard, and Harley's dream is to give them a platform. That's what she's been working towards for the past eighteen months.

She's got the funds and she's got the equipment, and more importantly she's got the talent – men and women who've been busting their asses without half the recognition she's received during her tenure. Now all she needs is the paperwork to go through and crown her empress of her own humble media empire.

That's not too much to ask, is it?

As Harley's getting higher and higher on her dreams, Rick's face is growing harder as he looks at his phone.

"Bad news?" she asks, encouraging him to share if it is. He's habitually tight-lipped and cagey about his feelings, but Harley's sure they've made some breakthroughs in recent weeks. He's still not talking about many things from his so-called former life, or even from his life as a performer, but she feels closer to him already. Except when he's closing off like this.

"You could say."

He puts his phone face down onto the table as if that would banish whatever upset him from the surface of the planet. She hopes it's not too bad. She doesn't like to see him like this, especially if he refuses help.

"Wanna talk about it?" she asks and rests her hand on top of his, gingerly, so as not to overstep. Touch can be overwhelming at times. She's been there.

"It's nothing," he smiles, but it's not reassuring. He clears away his plate to signify this conversation has ended for him and Harley feels weirded out. Something is off here, but she can't tell what exactly.

It's not the first time he's been like this, and usually she lets it go. It's probably got nothing to do with her. Probably just a bad review or something. She's been there, too. It gets to you, so by definition it has to get to him as well, even if he likes to pretend he's above all that. Call it machismo if you will, but it's more than that. It's his mostly self-imposed duty to protect everyone from harm, regardless of what it does to him. So if he tells her it's nothing, it's because he wants to shield her from it.

Which, naturally, is the wrong way to go about it where Harley is concerned. Keep something from her and she becomes all the more curious to find out what it is.

Have a secret? She'll make it her life's mission to find out.

But she's in no rush to do so now. Maybe he'll even tell her himself if he's ready and the time is right. She's not in the habit of pushing people, unless that's what they really need.

She files it away for now as she watches him rinse his plate, and clear away the food from the table, even though she's not done yet. It's nothing unusual, Rick just likes order. Especially when he feels unsettled.

Harley picks up her own tablet from where it was charging on the counter while he's doing the dishes, and absently scrolls through her news feed. It's not award season, so nothing much catches her interest, and thank God for that. It's never good news if it does.

Case in point: she's about to switch to YouTube for some clips of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, when she sees it.

A tweet asking for her opinion about a linked article. A familiar silhouette in the preview.

A particular yet unseeming headline that simply reads _Joker released,_ nothing more. Nothing sensationalist about it, nothing screaming click-bait. And yet, something inside _her_ is screaming even as she's frozen to her seat.

Because it's not true. It couldn't be. She just made that up, she must be seeing things. They wouldn't—they _couldn't_ have let him out so soon, not after everything he did.

She pushes her tablet from her. It slides over the table, knocking over her glass of orange juice and sending her fork clattering to the floor.

Suddenly she feels cold all over, and there's nothing she can do to ward off the sick feeling that settles over her except trying to control her breathing.

It doesn't work.

She feels a hand on her throat, squeezing, squeezing until her blood is pounding in her ears and spots dance across her vision.

She can't focus enough for a four-count breath and it comes out more ragged than she'd like. Rick is sure to have noticed. She doesn't want him to hear, to worry, to get involved. This is her fight, it's got nothing to do with him. She can't burden him with this. He'd leave her if he knew.

Of _him._

He knows some things but not all, and if it were up to her he'd know even less but it's hard to control the flow of information in this day and age. For a time, it seemed like _everyone_ knew and judged her for it. That is, until she met Rick, who didn't know and didn't care. Who didn't judge her.

Meeting him has been one of the best things to happen to her – but then again, she thought the same about other people before they went and broke her heart. Or she theirs.

"You saw?" Rick asks as he cleans up the spilled orange juice, hands dripping with sudsy water.

"You mean you knew?" Harley stares at him, wide-eyed and incredulous. At least she's able to breathe again.

"Not for that long. The news broke just now."

"That's what you didn't tell me?" she demands. She hates how harshly she's reacting. Hates that she's reacting at all. She thought she was over this, _should_ be over this by now, has _been_ over this. It's all in the past.

"I figured it'd come to your attention sooner or later. I didn't want to ruin your day just yet."

"Consider it ruined," Harley mutters.

Nervous energy is sparking in her veins. He's going to find her, and then he's going to make her life miserable again. She can't let that happen again.

Rick dries his hands and crouches next to her. She can't stand to look at him. To look him in the eyes and not tell him everything, tell him her side of the story, but she knows from experience that her side doesn't matter. People just go with the version they want to believe, everything else is irrelevant.

"I'm here for you. I won't let him hurt you."

But see, she wants to say, he already did. You're already too late.

It's an ungrateful thing to think, so she just smiles a wavering but brave smile and lets him kiss the back of her hand. She doesn't feel so brave, even if she knows she'll face whatever comes her way as she has before. It's not brave if it's a necessity, but with Rick at her side, at least she won't feel so alone.

It's hard to trust this feeling because she's learned not to lean on people, but she really, really wants to trust him. Trust that he'll pick her up again should she fall. Because she might.

She's not the same person she used to be all those years ago, and yet, the mere idea of _him_ showing up in her life again is still powerful enough to shake her. It's taken everything out of her to stand up to him and send him away for good.

He won't likely have forgotten about that, and it's futile to hope that he did if the grudges he held were any indication. The oldest she knew of was against Bruce Wayne for something he'd said about his first album or so he'd claimed, and as with everything else, she doubted he'd been entirely truthful about that.

"I know," she says, and kisses Rick's knuckles in return, drawing some courage from his fortitude.

Let him come, she thinks, if that's what he intends to do. He can't scare her, can't _touch_ her anymore. She'll crush his dirty fingers before he can so much as think of laying them on her. She's already beaten him once, and nothing's gonna stop her from doing it again.

Just let him come. She'll be ready for him this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Red Riding Hood" by Elysian Fields.


End file.
